Search the Dictionary

preparation of opaque or body colors, in which the pigments are tempered or diluted with weak glue or size (cf. Tempera) instead of oil, usually for scene painting, or for walls and ceilings of rooms.

Excessive fondness; weak and foolish affection. The dotage of the nation on presbytery. Bp. Burnet.

Foolish; weak. Dr. H. More.

A dotard's weakness; dotage. [Obs.] Drayton.

To be weak-minded, silly, or idiotic; to have the intellect impaired, especially by age, so that the mind wanders or wavers; to drivel. Time has made you dote, and vainly tell Of arms imagined in your lonely cell. Dryden. He survived the use of his reason, grew infatuated, and doted long before he died. South.…

One excessively fond, or weak in love. Shak.

Foolish; weak; imbecile. Sir W. Scott.

Imperfectly baked; hence, not brought to perfection; unfinished; also, of weak or dull understanding. [Colloq.] Halliwell.

One who dribs; one who shoots weakly or badly. [Obs.] Ascham.

To fall weakly and slowly. [Obs.] "The dribbling dart of love." Shak. (Meas. for Meas. , i. 3, 2). [Perhaps an error for dribbing.]

Weak or rare. [Obs.]

To be weak or foolish; to dote; as, a driveling hero; driveling love. Shak. Dryden.

See Illust. of Locomotive. -- Driving note (Mus.), a syncopated note; a tone begun on a weak part of a measure and held through the next accented part, thus anticipating the accent and driving it through. -- Driving spring, a spring fixed upon the box of the driving axle of a locomotive engine to support the weight…

To grow weak or faint with disappointment, grief, or like causes; to be dispirited or depressed; to languish; as, her spirits drooped. I'll animate the soldier's drooping courage. Addison.

le's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing. Matt. xiii. 15. O, help my weak wit and sharpen my dull tongue. Spenser.

One backward in book learning; a child or other person dull or weak in intellect; a dullard; a dolt. I never knew this town without dunces of figure. Swift.

The termination of the past participle of regular, or weak, verbs; also, of analogous participial adjectives from nouns; as, pigmented; talented.

Characteristic quality of a woman, such as softness, luxuriousness, delicacy, or weakness, which is unbecoming a man; womanish delicacy or softness; -- used reproachfully of men. Milton.

woman, as delicacy, luxuriousness, etc.; soft or delicate to an unmanly degree; womanish; weak. The king, by his voluptuous life and mean marriage, became effeminate, and less sensible of honor. Bacon. An effeminate and unmanly foppery. Bp. Hurd.

In an effeminate or womanish manner; weakly; softly; delicately. "Proud and effeminately gay." Fawkes.